


Do Sprites Dream of Electric Brothers?

by PFDiva



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Sadstuck, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PFDiva/pseuds/PFDiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davesprite runs into his brother in dream bubbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Sprites Dream of Electric Brothers?

Dave found himself in his own bed, in his own bedroom.

Which was weird, because he knew his bedroom didn't exist, anymore.

Not like this, anyway, looking out over the Houston skyline.

He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, normal stuff.

Not a sprite at all.

As soon as he thought about it, there was the tail, orange everywhere, and he just didn't want it.

Not at home.

So, as he got out of bed and left his room, he decided to be normal again.

Normal was good.

It was normal.

His brother was sitting on the futon, talking on the phone to someone.

Common sight in the Strider household.

But Dave missed his brother.

His brother, the one from his timeline, didn't even exist anymore, and the one from the proper timeline was dead.

It was Dave's fault, in a way.

In a lot of ways.

Sburb.

Actually playing the game.

Not being strong enough.

If he had been strong enough, he could have helped more, done more.

Something.

He pushed aside those thoughts.

He was a Strider and Striders did not wallow in self-pity.

Dave didn't remember this moment, how it was supposed to go.

He didn't care.

He swiped his brother's flip phone, easily breaking it in half.

He'd always wanted to do that.

Bro, on the other hand, was suitably peeved by Dave's actions, his lips thinning into an angry line.

“Dave.”

In that one word, in that tone, was a question, a demand.

What was Dave doing?

Who did he think he was?

If he didn't have a good explanation for this, he was in so much trouble.

Dave casually tossed the pieces over his shoulder, his expression neutral.

“Bro, you're dead. This crap doesn't matter, anymore.”

Bro shifted to look at Dave fully, the tense hand on the back of the couch and the way he leaned slightly back telling Dave his brother didn't believe him.

Bro's mouth hung open in the true shock that meant that Dave had really caught him off-guard.

The things he would have done to elicit that expression before Sburb.

He couldn't remember his own death yet, apparently.

Dave took in these minute gestures in less than a second before adding more.

“I missed you.”

Dave didn't have to try to make his body, his face, say that he was telling the truth.

His shoulders anxiously hunched in, his lips faintly pursed as he tried to not scream frustration at his brother.

His hands hung limp at his sides, his whole body leaning forward with the intensity of his desire to see his brother, be around him

His body would not betray his lie, because there was no lie to betray.

Bro's shoulders relaxed, his arm going limp as the tension drained from him.

His mouth softened into what could, but never would, become a fond smile

The furrow in his brow remained.

Dave had bought himself forgiveness with sincerity.

Bro didn't understand, but he was willing to forgive.

Dave didn't want to explain.

So he didn't.

Instead, he joined his brother on the futon.

He laid on his back, hooking his knees over the arm of the futon, intentionally hobbling himself with the motion.

He rested his head on his brother's thigh, ignoring the anxious tension in his brother's body as he intentionally put himself into his brother's personal space.

He tilted his chin up so that he could watch his brother's shoulders nervously pull back, while the older man attempted to figure out what the hell to do now.

This was abnormal behavior.

Dave was putting himself at his brother's mercy, his arms loose at his sides, truly relaxed, his stomach and throat bared, everything putting him in a weaker, more vulnerable position.

He usually sat on the other end of the futon, knees drawn up so that he could spring away at a moment's notice. He would lean against the arm of the futon, one of his own arms draped across his knees, rejecting his brother's presence with every line of his body.

Now he was inviting Bro closer.

Dave knew his brother didn't like people.

He saw the way his brother's shoulders always tensed when they were anywhere outside the apartment, how very aware his brother always was of every person around them at the grocery store, McDonald's, the movie theater.

He noticed how his brother's lips pressed into an irritated line when he had to slide past or interact with strangers, how Bro stepped around people, tensing on the rare occasions he failed to notice someone and bumped into them.

When Bro decided what to do, Dave saw none of that.

Bro's shoulders relaxed, shifting in towards Dave protectively. He rested his elbow on Dave's forearm, his own forearm draping across Dave's stomach. His face softened more, the confused wrinkle smoothing away, the corners of his mouth just barely not turning up.

He wasn't going to take advantage of Dave's vulnerability.

Not right now, anyway.

When Dave felt Bro's fingers come to rest in his hair, he couldn't stop his face from scrunching with distress.

He saw Bro's eyebrows go up, then crash together, the fingers in his hair freezing.

Dave tried to smile, turning his lips up at the corners and relaxing his eyebrows to reassure his brother.

But his mouth was too tense at the corners to make the smile genuine, and he could feel the tension above his brows that would give away his continued misery.

Even though he was here with Bro right now, soon he would awaken.

When he did, he'd leave the dream bubble.

He didn't want to be alone again.

Bro leaned closer to Dave's face for a better look, his elbows bending outward protectively, rather than inward and defensive.

Dave turned his face away from his brother, who he knew would want to know why Dave was so upset, why Dave was so vulnerable today, and that would require actual words.

An explanation.

He didn't want to.

Not yet.

He wanted to hold onto this abnormal normality for as long as he could, just to be with his brother, like old times.

Spying the remote control on the coffee table, he reached out to grab it.

He was stopped by his brother's hands, tense fingers digging into the base of his sternum, holding him in place.

The hand cradling his head turned his face to meet his brother's.

Bro's face was close enough now that Dave could see the outline of his eyes through his shades, though they told him nothing that the rest of Bro's face couldn't.

Bro wanted that explanation.

Now.

Dave didn't want to give it to him.

Because it would mean that Bro was really, legitimately dead.

He did it anyway.

“Do you remember the asteroid you cut to give me some time? LOHAC? Bec Noir?”

Dave knew that his brother remembered, because they were suddenly in the sweltering heat of LOHAC, the grinding of gears surrounding them while his brother laid on the ground with a sword through his chest, bleeding endlessly.

Dave was a sprite again, orange blood mingling with red on the ground from his stomach and his torn-off, destroyed wing.

Dave bit the inside of his lip.

He didn't want to be here.

Not again.

Helplessly unable to stop it from happening, he buried his face in his arms, desperately trying to not sob out his grief.

A warm hand touched his shoulder and he looked up into blank, dead eyes, unguarded by shades, framed by pale, furrowed brows.

“I'm so sorry.”

Dave froze in place, stunned.

His brother never apologized.

Not with words.

With a guilty slump of his shoulders.

A joke they both knew was way too weak and not nearly ironic enough.

An unexpected cheeseburger.

Not with words.

Not with those words.

Never.

“I'm sorry I couldn't kill him. I'm sorry I can't protect you anymore.”

Dave buried his face in his arms as tears welled up in his eyes.

His brother had been trying to protect him.

He'd always known, in a way, that his brother had been trying to protect him, take care of him.

That his brother loved him.

Bro allowed Dave his tears in silence.

Eventually, Dave recovered enough of his voice to mumble out a few words.

“I'm not even your Dave. I'm just the feathery asshole who used to be your brother.”

“Pfft—stupid.”

Dave quickly dashed away his tears, lifting his face to look at Bro's 'You're being stupid, but it's not your fault' expression.

“You think I'd die for just any feathery asshole?”

Dave wrapped his arms around Bro's shoulders, hugging him tightly.

And Bro hugged him back.

They both had to be careful of the swords through their middles, but that really wasn't a thing that Dave cared about.

Bro didn't think he was inferior, or worthless.

Bro had been protecting HIM.

Dave.

Not Davesprite, the game construct meant to guide and protect the “real” Dave.

His little brother.

To Bro, he was also the real Dave.

“I'm proud of you, feathery asshole.”

“You are?”

“Hells to the yes. You did just like I woulda done.”

“I did?”

“Yup. Keep it up, ok?”

“Okay.”

Dave woke to nakodiles babbling and consorts bubbling, to John and Jade and Jasper the sprite, and he couldn't help but smile.

Even though life sucked right now, it would get better.

His friends were alive, and so was he.

Both of him.


End file.
